Last week, Freightwaves published an article questioning whether automated trucking companies are dedicated to safety simply because former federal transportation officials now work for companies in the automated vehicle (AV) space. Let’s be clear – that argument doesn’t hold up to publicly available safety data reports and compliance with National Highway Safety Transportation Administration (NHTSA) requirements.

The entire industry exists in order to increase safety for all road users. It is evident that companies are already delivering on this promise, given publicly available safety reports and a recent study that found automated trucking technology outperforms the safety metrics of the average human truck driver.

What the article also overlooks is that any perceived regulatory lethargy on behalf of the federal government isn’t new – rulemakings take time to promulgate, and in fact it is a good thing that the process is so time-intensive. Multiple comment periods and revision windows allow for every voice to be heard, regardless of former occupation or connection to the federal Department of Transportation (DOT).

Thankfully, former National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Robert Sumwalt made clear in the article that a stringent ethics pledge has been and remains in place for former presidential appointments, and he also pointed out that transitioning from government to industry isn’t new by any means.

Finally, the article concluded by mentioning NHTSA’s recent General Order requiring manufacturers and operators of vehicles equipped with specific advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving systems (ADS) technology to report crash data, but the author incorrectly characterized the Order as applicable to trucks only when the actual language pertains to the entire automated vehicle industry – trucks, passenger vehicles, bots, and so on. That distinction is critically important, because the company that is truly under regulator scrutiny is Tesla, a passenger vehicle company, who is not currently in the trucking space.

In a time when consumer acceptance of and confidence in automated vehicles is a major priority for companies and associations alike, reporting like this does not help improve the safety of the motoring public. Automated trucking companies are dedicated to safety, and that’s all there is to it.